


Alternative

by Waffawa



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Drama, F/M, Relationship(s), Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-25
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-05-28 23:51:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6350581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waffawa/pseuds/Waffawa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Max needs to return to the original timeline but doesn't quite know how. She seeks out the help of her friend, Warren, though he isn't exactly her friend in this universe. A 'what if' Max stuck around a little longer in the alternate timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

This story takes place during the alternate timeline that Max briefly visits in episode 3.

}{

"Thanks for meeting with me."

Warren's eyes watched his current companion carefully. The small knowledge he had of Maxine Caulfield has been none too pleasant. She's a part of the Vortex Club, the one aspect of Blackwell Academy that was hellbent on making other peoples' lives slightly more difficult while hiding its cruel interior under a mask of high school do-goodedness. It was just a ruse obviously, everyone knew this, so they could party without interference. Nathan Prescott also made sure to maintain this status quo.

His gaze drifted to her red-rimmed eyes, the brows that knit together in uncertainty. From what he has seen in class, in the short time he has known the girl, Maxine was always a well-put together picture. Simple lines in her clothes, an air of superiority. She walked the halls as if nothing could bother her, and usually nothing did anyway. The preps looked up to her, and the outsiders couldn't be bothered one way or another. She was just… someone that marched to her own pace, indifferent to those around her. But he figured she reveled in this sort of attention, even if she acted like it didn't affect her.

So it was especially weird, that this girl who sought to ignore the existence of people who drifted on the edges of high-class society to begin with, had approached him one random afternoon, practically in tears, asking with a heartfelt plea to meet her at a later time.

He almost refused, for fear of being led into some cruel trap set up by the Vortex Club, but then he saw the desperateness that radiated within her entire persona, how her circle of friends were nowhere to be seen, how she watched him with such a fervent fear that he might say "no"… and he couldn't refuse after that.

He didn't know her except through the mythos of the school and how she propped herself up in the classes they shared. She was as much an enigma to him as he probably was to her. So why did she approach him?

"You don't know how good it feels to see a friendly face…"

She was talking still, taking hesitant peeks at him through the long bangs on her face. He fought the urge to raise his brow and the incredulity that swam within him spilled forth from his unchecked mouth.

"Friendly? You do realize you're in the Vortex Club, right? You guys hate people like me on sight."

He didn't mean to sound so harsh, but he still wasn't sure the game she was trying to play. When the words registered in Maxine's eyes, her head fell forward as if she were contemplating some sort of common truth. She knew exactly how the Vortex Club operated. I mean, she should, as she often engaged in their intrigues.

"I keep forgetting…" she mumbled, and then turned her head skyward, "I'm sorry for what they do to you. It's beyond cruel and stupid. I wish they'd stop."

"You make it sound like you'd never join in."

"I would never."

The adamant tone she used gave him pause and he considered her for a moment. A quiet "hmm"ing vibrated in his cheeks. Her face had fallen back to the ground as they slowly continued their trek around campus grounds. They walked at a snail's pace, Maxine's hand clutched solemnly at her white cardigan, shielding what little part of her she could. Her knuckles were white. Her shoulders hunched. He had never seen her look this uncomfortable in their short time together as classmates, like she wanted to jump out of her skin.

"For what it's worth…" he began, a part of him instinctively wanting to offer comfort to a sad-looking girl, "you never seemed the type to do anything nasty anyway… that I've seen," he tacked on, unable to help himself. There was a whole side to the Vortex Club he had probably never seen and couldn't speak from absolutes.

Her eyelids jumped for a second, "thanks… I guess."

"Anyway," he pulled them into a stop, turning his body fully to face her. They could walk around campus all day but it wouldn't give him any answers. He could barely handle any more silence as it were. He needed to get down to business. "What'd you need to talk about? Did I piss off your boyfriend or something?"

"Boyfriend?" she whispered to herself and considered her next thought, not meeting his eyes. "No, nothing like that. Uhm… I'm not sure where to begin… but I feel like you're the only one I can turn to at this point."

"Wow, quite the responsibility," he couldn't help sounding so blasé, "what, is it like tutoring you need? 'Cause I don't know if I have the time." Would Maxine really approach him for something so trivial? He couldn't guess otherwise. His mind nagged at him that it was obviously something far bigger than that. But the other half of him could never guess in a million years that his help would be the one that was the difference in her life somehow.

They came to a campus bench and Maxine gestured towards it with both arms, "No… no. Uh, you might want to sit down for this." He sat without another word, bringing his arms together in front of him as a student would prepare themselves for a teacher's lesson. He continued to watch her as she gathered her thoughts.

After a moment's silence, she finally locked eyes with him.

"Warren," she said his name for the first time that afternoon with such a familiarity he almost jumped in his seat. He didn't even know she knew his name. She continued, "are you still really into science?"

"'Still'?" He cocked an eyebrow wondering if it really was some sort of homework assignment she needed help with. "It's my bread and butter." He liked to lay it on thick that he was such a strong mind in that department. Most people knew it was his specialty and liked to remind people of that fact. For Maxine to ask if he was 'still' into science was almost laughable.

"Good, I'm glad." She smiled at him, just a small one, as if this tidbit of well-known knowledge of a random facet of his life was a line of comfort that one held to when distressed. He felt unbalanced.

But before he could regain some sort of understanding of how such a thing could give anyone any sort of comfort, she was already talking again, a newfound lilt to her voice. "Does that mean that your mind is open to new possibilities?"

It was a weird question. Suddenly he felt like he was being interviewed to enter a new science-based cult. "I guess that depends…"

"Even one that could bend the very foundation of the world as you know it?" Her hands clasped together on the table in front of her and they shook from the pressure she was squeezing them.

"Okay, where are you going with this…" He was a little more at a loss now. Did he do the right thing in engaging in this strange girl's plea to meet with him? He was beginning to question her sanity but he made no immediate plans to leave. He was already far too engrossed in this mysterious girl to get up and walk away now. But still, the hesitation showed itself on his expression. She must've seen it because she took a quick intake of breath and looked at him with wide eyes.

Her voice tumbled out in a scratchy mess made worse by a tightened throat. "This is going to sound insane. Trust me. This isn't easy to explain. And I know you don't know me and probably even hate me on sight—"

"I don't hate you," he interjected. It just slipped out. He was beginning to feel a little sorry for the girl. She looked so vulnerable, nothing like the haughty photographer he was used to. "Granted… I always thought you were a bit of a freak, no offense." He inwardly groaned. Why of all times did he feel the need to divulge such a personal thought? In his head it hadn't sounded like an insult but out of his mouth he felt like a jerk. Thankfully, her expression didn't change much. Instead it drifted to the table, even looking half amused as if thinking of a private joke.

"Well, you wouldn't be wrong," she said after a moment. He merely looked at her and waited. "Okay," she took a deep breath, steadying herself. "Jesus, where to start... what if…" her eyes locked with his and for a second all he could see was the blue coloring of her irises, "uhm, what if I told you that we're actually best friends in another timeline? God, that sounds crazy." Her voice shimmered out in an exasperated huff.

He didn't know how to respond to that. Could he believe that in some alternate world… if alternate worlds were a thing that could even conceivably exist, would this girl, his classmate for only a few months, after approaching him on a random afternoon, looking like a completely different person, be someone he was close with? His mouth felt dry, but he didn't want to scare her away by completely dismissing her. He wanted to hear more. The scientific-mind that he so closely admired of himself was begging him to keep listening and to say whatever it was that would keep her talking.

"Go on," was the most creative thing he could summon in that moment. What was he supposed to say? Yes, I believe you? He could've, he reasoned but it would've been a half-truth. But relief flooded her face and he felt a small joy course through him at the sight. She looked remarkably better when she didn't look like she was about to explode in her seat or break down crying.

"Really?" Her voice betrayed just how anxious she actually was. She must've been so sure he would flat-out rejected her. The thought made him feel a bit put-out. The last person he wanted to be was someone that instilled such a fear in girls he barely knew.

"I mean, unless you're just crazy, I have no reason not to hear you out… this is some ground-breaking bomb you're dropping on me. I can't turn away now."

Her hands on the table relaxed and she sighed, tension melting from her body as she began to speak again. "Okay," she steadied herself and rocked forward slightly so no passing person could possibly hear her. There was no one in sight. He listened with all the intensity of someone hearing that there was life on Mars. Snippets of her admission floated continuously in his mind long after she had already said them.

"I'm from another timeline, I'm not actually the prep you know me as in the Vortex Club. You and I are just a couple of nerds on the outskirts of Blackwell." Gee thanks, his own mind muttered unconsciously, barely registering the more unbelievable parts of that sentence. She talked about how she discovered her time-travel ability, what happened in the bathroom, and how he had saved her from the wrath of Nathan Prescott. She tumbled over the next day in her story, seemingly deciding to edit down her explanation on the spot rather than doing a complete play-by-play. He wished she would divulge every single detail but he was too frozen in her rant to say anything. She briefly mentioned Kate Marsh without going into it and shook her head as she fought what looked like sour memories. She skipped forward to how she ended up to be in this "timeline" as she kept calling it, saying she discovered she could go back years in the past and "changed something" that drastically altered her reality. And here she was.

She spread her palms out on the table, fingers stretched out. She breathed like she was winded from running a marathon. A silence lingered before them and she stared at her hands, waiting for a response as if anticipating a caning. He fought some foreign urge to touch her trembling fingers.

"Boy…" he said instead, exhaling out. He was still taking it all in. No part of himself was rejecting the idea, which he found a little funny. This felt like just another aspect of the world he could've read about in a textbook. Maybe it was his obsession with The X-Files and time-travelling shows like Dr. Who that kept his mind from imploding. Instead, a dormant excitement bubbled in his chest like a kid on Christmas morning.

"I know it's a lot. And if you can find even a sliver of it to believe, that's really all I ask."

He could believe it all, or at least, he wanted to. It didn't seem all too out of this world to him, he's heard weirder things. Heck, he even believed more insane theories himself. Time-travel? Just another occurrence in the chaotic insanity that is our constantly changing universe. Or, at least, this was what he told himself.

The longer she waited in silence for his reaction, the more the fear became palpable on her face. He wanted to assuage her somehow, by reaching back into her confession for some small facet in which to assure of his belief, albeit incredulously.

"You say I got beat up by Nathan Prescott? Hard to believe. The guy is such a pacifist these days." He offered up a shaking grin and her eyes widened.

"Nathan? A pacifist? You're kidding." Tears welled in her eyes as it sunk in that he was choosing to hear her out. He hoped they were tears of joy. She looked like she wanted to burst out laughing in pure relief.

"Yeah," he continued on, his heart an uncontrollable jackhammer in his chest. It was excitement that drove his voice on now and he fought to keep his volume level. "Since you guys started going out at least."

"WHAT?! I'm dating Nathan Prescott?!" she practically screamed it at him.

His ears tweaked at the noise, for a moment forgetting she would not be privy to such an aspect of her own life. "Oh right, you're not from here," he said it so oddly casually as if she just lived out of state instead of out of this universe. "But yeah, been nothing but civil since. It's been a bit of a blessing. The teachers praise you and the heavens, none too discreetly either." He was laying it on thick, as he often did, but he couldn't stop talking. He wanted to blow her mind too, with the information only he could know. The surprise only continued to mount on her face with each passing word and he took a strange enjoyment from it, the fear long drained out of her eyes. He was glad for this. The strangeness of her time-travel story seemed pale in contrast with the disbelief of how she looked at him now.

"Augh, this is fucked up… I wonder what else is different…" Maxine talked to herself, her voice low in her chest. When she realized where her thoughts had drifted, she looked back up at him, following the trail of their previous topic. Of all the things to question in this timeline, she chose to ask about his relationship status. "I see you and Stella are together…"

He felt taken aback, figuring that the love of his life would be a constant in the universe. He mentally reprimanded himself for thinking such a corny line, Stella would've smacked him. "Are we not together in the alternate world?" He said it with such surprise that it transferred over to his companion's expression.

"No, actually…" she hesitates, "I don't think you two are very close." There's a curious twinge to her voice and he wonders if there is more that she isn't telling him, like she's trying to protect him from some hidden truth. Maybe Stella hates him in the alternate timeline? The thought makes him frown.

"That's a real shame. You should tell alternate Warren to get on that, the idiot." A laugh escapes his throat. It really was a shame, and he was suddenly grateful that he existed in the world where Stella and him found one another. He was minutely surprised by the ease in which he accepted the alternate world as truth, and Maxine seemed to sense this in equal doses.

She laughed awkwardly, "You're taking this… remarkably well." Her hands were curled now, back in tight fists on the wooden tabletop.

"I mean, I want to believe, Maxine," he laughed at his own dumb X-Files reference, earning a look from the girl across from him. "There's so much about the universe that we don't and can't understand… I guess this is me just suspending my disbelief." He shrugged as if it explained away his easy acceptance, and he didn't want to go further into his own thought-process anyway, for fear of finding fault or revealing to her just how much he truly did want to believe her.

"Max."

"Huh?" Her voice broke him from his trance and his eyes locked again with hers.

"Just Max. Not Maxine."

"I figured you'd get heated if anyone who wasn't your…friend called you that, here at least." He couldn't help referencing his own world. The differences, no matter how trivial, all astounded him. Though he didn't let it show.

"Well it's the opposite for… this "me" at least," she gestured to herself, tugging stoically at her cardigan. She didn't appear to care much for the garment, and began to look at it with disdain.

"Alright then… "Max." Cool name for a girl." He had always thought so.

"Do you know anything else about the "me" in this universe? What am I like?" Curiosity played at the edges of her voice. I guess even she couldn't help wanting to know more about something that otherwise would never exist.

He thought quietly for a moment and rubbed at his chin in forced theatrics. He mulled over the information he had at his disposal. It wasn't much, and he didn't exactly want to lie to her. "Well… you're kind of stand-offish. I feel like you like the feeling of being worshipped, but you'd never admit that, probably."

"Jeez…"

"You love sounding like a know-it-all in class," he continued, enjoying the disgust that manifested on her face in such a comical fashion.

"Me? No way."

"Don't worry, I'm the same way." They shared a laugh and he wondered if the Warren of her world was typically the same in that regard. She had said they were friends right? That must mean there was a part of each other that got along. He was still trying to wrap his head around that fact. The "Maxine" he was meeting right now must be entirely different for them to have formed a kinship… unless it was the other Warren that was different. His head was spinning.

"I don't sound like myself at all," she half sighed, unable to believe it.

"Other than that, I guess I don't pay too much attention. Actually, this is the longest we've ever been in the same breathing space."

She shook her head and mulled over the new information, watching the nearby fountain as if seeing it for the first time. Eventually, her small voice mumbled, "I can't believe such a change in the past could alter everything about my life."

Though he believed she wasn't addressing him, Warren pressed forward, "you mentioned you changed something big and ended up here. What was it?"

Something akin to shame ghosted over her face. Her mouth fell open momentarily and he heard the quick catch of her throat, and her eyes misted, all in the span of a few quick and painful seconds. He quickly waved his hands to dismiss his question.

"You don't have to tell me. I think I've heard more than enough for a single afternoon."

Her face relaxed. He could tell this was too heavy a subject for the current air between them and he didn't want to spoil what comfort she had worked so ardently towards.

"So you do believe me?" she asked for the third time that day. Her voice was small still, almost pleading. No matter how many times he reassured her, he worried she would never stop questioning him on the matter.

"I probably just need to sort out my thoughts and sleep on it. Will you still be here… tomorrow?" His thoughts hesitated. Would she stay in this timeline? What did her presence in his timeline mean for the Maxine Caulfield of the world that he knew? Was she gone forever? He wasn't so sure how he felt about that but seeing Nathan's newfound calm exterior pop into his mind made him inwardly grimace. It was obvious that this Max did not care for the boy.

He was still contemplating this when her voice squeaked out again in admission, a determination replacing her uncertain tone. "That's why I need your help. I need to make things right again."

"'Right'? You mean return to your own timeline?" Something about her words made his mind hum alive like a startled engine. She hadn't noticed the hardened stare he affixed her with as she continued talking.

"Basically resetting this one back to normal," she said, resolute.

"Normal?" he questioned, the humming in his mind working at an increasingly quickening pace. "What's so wrong with this one?"

"Many things actually. I've made a mistake… I need to fix everything." She nodded, a concrete firmness to her mouth as she spoke clearly and evenly as if she knew she had no other choice in the matter. She would fix everything even if it was the last thing she did.

Something in him snapped, the revving of his mind coming to an absolute peak. He finally realized what bothered him about what she was saying and his words came out quicker and angrier than he anticipated. "But who says you should determine the way things ought to go? What gives you the right?"

His harsh tone caught her off guard and her head whipped to him in surprise, the force of which caused a crick in her neck. She cringed, wincing at the pain or at his accusation, he couldn't be sure. A moment of hurt realization sunk into the space between them and the pair looked hard at one another. "It was never supposed to be this way," she sounded defensive. "This isn't me or my life!"

He leaned up tall in his seat, a palm flattened against his chest, "but it's OURS!"

She sunk back, her mouth fell open as if to retort but all she could summon was a weak sigh of her far too familiar sounding voice, "Warren…"

He lowered himself, his hand dropped back to the table in a fist. He suddenly found he couldn't meet her gaze and his eyes travelled to some shape in the distance. Even his response sounded far off. "I don't want to lose this life. I'm happy where I am. Is your universe so much better that the rest of us have to vanish into oblivion for yours to exist?"

She looked clearly scolded, like a child receiving punishment for a crime they knew they were guilty of. The sight made him want to wilt but his shoulders remained squared. She had to know that whatever she wanted to do… it wasn't right or fair. "I don't know how it works… I shouldn't have tampered with time to begin with. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing by changing the past."

He deflated at her admission. She sounded so weary, the burden of her own mistake clearly weighing on her and her mind. Whatever it was that caused her to change the past and what the consequences of her actions were, he wasn't sure he even wanted to know anymore.

She continued, a stream of tears leaving invisible tracks down her freckled cheeks. He didn't mean to make her cry. "I just wanted to make things right. I'm sorry I brought you into it. I shouldn't have done anything. I know it was wrong. You do look so happy. Happier than I've ever seen you. I don't want to take that away. I know—"

"Please stop," he implored her with a gentleness he didn't know he had in him. He didn't want to hear that desperate voice anymore, it was beginning to pain him, as if he was personally responsible for her struggle. "We'll talk more about this, okay?" He tried to muster up an encouraging smile and worked to dismiss the darker accusations he had swimming around in his head.

She quickly nodded, her gaze falling back to the table. Inhaling deeply, her quivering breaths settled back to normal as silence fell between them. He rapped absentmindedly on the wood, feeling sorry. It's not like the pair of them were even familiar acquaintances at this point so it was weird engaging someone he barely knew so seriously. And yet, the odd feeling that fizzled between them dissipated at a rapid rate. He could believe that the two were friends in some other world, judging by how easy and real the energy felt between them. As if he had always known her.

He sighed. "Hey." Her head lifted. "Maybe… you'll learn to like it here after all."

She coughed out a laugh, a heavy and sardonic one. "I seriously doubt that."

"Why?" He genuinely wanted to know. Maxine Caulfield's life, as far as he could tell, was a pretty easy-going one. She seemed happy with her situation.

"For one thing… I hate Nathan Prescott. I hate the Vortex Club. I sound like a brat. And you and I aren't even friends anymore—"

"That's a few things."

"—Not to mention I've done some horrible and irrevocable damage to someone I love."

He regarded her words. They must seem like the end of the world to her, to have everything flipped so drastically over its head. But he wanted to remain positive, at least for her sake, and partially for his. "Those things can be changed, you know."

"Right." Her sad tone was replaced with a flippant one and he was internally glad for the shift in mood.

"And Nathan, at least in this universe, isn't so bad. With your influence," he tacked on the end.

"I guess."

"And I can't speak for the damage to the person you love but… we can always become friends." He looked at her and smiled. All traces of her earlier pain had mostly been washed away.

"I suppose." She returned the grin and his widened.

But her face quickly dropped soon after and her response was once more a solemn one. "That last one… is a big one. It's the biggest reason I need to return to my original timeline." She wiped at her cheeks as she mulled over more thoughts in her head. "I don't even think I have a good relationship with my family here. Everyone hates me. The texts I've gotten… I sound like a monster."

"More things that can change," he pressed, a hopeful and optimistic cadence to his words. He wanted to sound like some sort of motivational speaker but her expression remained unconvinced.

Her eyes turned skyward suddenly like she sensed a shift in the surrounding atmosphere. Her gaze searched the horizon for some unseen presence. He resisted the urge to follow her line of sight, keeping his own eyes on her face. "This… thing is bigger than I can even fully articulate. Even the storm is still coming. Do you feel that? In the air?"

He reached a hand out and mimicked her pose, as if he could touch whatever electricity was swimming around them. He knew what she meant, and he had felt it stirring for the past couple of days. Then again, the weather in general was in odd disarray. Snow… an eclipse… "You mean all of the strange weather phenomena?" His pulse quickened. Of all things to be similar between the two timelines, something as grand and world altering as unstoppable Mother Nature… it scared him.

"Yes. It's happening even in my world. I wonder what it all means." Her arms wrapped around herself as a chill picked up. It was as if the air could sense it was under scrutiny and made itself known. The hairs on his arms were sticking up but he was sure it wasn't from the cold, but something else.

"Hmm…" he appraised her silently. A tightness forming in his stomach as his mind whipped through the myriad of information he had had thrown at him in the course of a single afternoon. He felt skeptical, excited, hopeful, and fearful all at once and a light dazed quality was making its way over his line of vision. He worried he might pass out.

His newfound companion broke the silence with a clearing of her throat and his brain returned to the present. He could mull over everything he learned at a later time, most likely against his will. He'll probably be thinking about this for days.

She was sitting up straighter now with her face clearly examining him. "Warren," there was his name again, sliding so effortlessly from her mouth, "I just wanted to say… thank you so much for listening to me." Her hand reached for his and she briefly touched the top of his wrist. He felt frozen in place, unable to properly react and she pulled back before he could even move. "I knew I could count on you, even across universes." Her smile was so sad that a dull ache made its way through his chest. It looked like she was considering some far-away painful truth and he wondered momentarily what their relationship was like in the alternate timeline.

He voiced his thoughts, speaking quickly as if she might disappear any moment, even his arm shot out, as if to catch her. "What am I like?"

The question caught her off guard and her mouth parted in surprise before settling back into a thoughtful look. Her head tilted and she considered her words. "You're my goofball Warren…" he grinned at that and her voice continued softly. "You always make me laugh and smile… and you always help me out in a tight spot. I wouldn't know where I'd be without you." She finished quietly, letting him turn over her words in his mind.

"Wow, I have a lot to live up to…" he felt humbled by her words, as if the person he currently was wasn't nearly close to that level. And the way she talked about his alternate self, it was so warmly personal that he began to question something else entirely.

"I'm sure you're fine the way you are," she added, her body turned to the side and away from his scrutiny.

His mind shook itself awake and he returned to the tail-end of their previous conversation before his curiosity got the better of him. He caught her attention again, now spluttering, off-kilter. "Anyway, don't fret too much. I'll help you figure something out. Might even convince you to stick around!" A part of him now wanted her to stay, but he couldn't properly voice this. After hearing the differences between her two separate lives, he had to know that this wasn't the place for her. They both knew it, somehow.

She shrugged, a weak smile on her lips. "Crazier things have happened."

"Warren!" a voice rang out and he jumped visibly in his seat.

He stood without thinking, a crazed hurriedness to his expression as if he was just shaken awake from a dream. "Oh, sorry, that's Stella, I've gotta—I better go." She regarded him passively as he gathered up his minimal belongings.

Her expression hadn't changed when he looked up again. "It was… really nice to finally meet you, Maxine. I mean- Max." The name was solid. But he wanted to slap himself. What a foolish thing to say, as if they hadn't just had a life-altering conversation. Still, it seemed fitting. This girl across from him wasn't the same person he knew in his classes and yet she might as well be.

He smiled again, wanting to rouse a similar delight in her and she obliged, even as he slowly walked backwards, away from the bench where she remained seated. He didn't want to lose sight of her just yet, afraid she'd fade away as dreams so often do.

She picked an arm up and waved at him, a desolately hopeful look on her face. "Goodbye, Warren," she called out. He hated how final that sounded and didn't repeat it back to her.

He waved instead, "I'll see you around!" He hoped that was true.

He forcibly turned his head away and jogged away, not wanting to look back.

}{


	2. Passing

}{

There is a time-traveler in our midst. And he couldn't stop thinking about her, even as he laid, arm-in-arm, with the so-called love of his life. This was still true, and yet as he absentmindedly stroked the arm of his girlfriend, his mind was elsewhere, on the pale eyes of another.

He wondered any number of things about her and her abilities. Could she potentially travel back even further if she looked at some old historical photo? Could she only travel using photographs? Could she go to the future? Could she travel with another person tagging along? His scientific mind filtered through what limited information he had on the subject, all based on fictional accounts. There was no way he could get any answers unless he asked the source himself. And even she probably didn't know the answers to his questions, being just as lost herself.

"Who were you talking to this afternoon?"

And there was another matter that plagued him. If she went back in time and somehow restored her timeline, what would happen to him in this life? As far as he knew, he had been living his life as it is for as long as he could remember. Could it be possible she simply jumped over to a timeline that existed in tandem with her original one? If she restored, would she go back to being regular ol' Maxine Caulfield? Or would the shifting of timelines cause his to disappear and be written over with hers? It was an unpleasant thought, knowing he could potentially be written out of existence. He supposed he would still exist in some form, elsewhere. But he wouldn't be this version of himself anymore.

"Warren?"

He wouldn't remember any of this either. He'd forget all about his life. To him, it would be like dying… but being reborn? He didn't know what to make of it and the constant back and forth between excitement and pure dread was showing itself quite plainly on his face.

"Helloooo?"

"Huh?" His mind cleared he was back in his dorm room. He looked to his side and saw Stella staring up at him through her glasses. Her eyebrows were raised but rather than appearing annoyed, she looked amused. Stella wasn't one to get upset over trivial things. He really liked that about her.

"What's on your mind, boy-genius? You've been staring at your cat poster for over half an hour."

"Nothing…" he shifted in his seat, still coming to terms with his wandering thoughts. He was only just beginning to register where and when exactly he was. Stella tugged at him and he finally snapped out of it. "Sorry, I had the weirdest conversation with- believe it or not- Max Caulfield."

"Maxine? What did she want? I'd watch out for her if I were you." Stella was nothing but cautious and yet simultaneously laid-back. If there was anything she got worked up about, it was usually with school-work and maintaining a high GPA. As well as working odd jobs here and there to make money. Warren wasn't sure why she needed to work so often, he figured the stress of work plus school plus her family would be a little too much for her. But she handled it well, another aspect that he admired of her.

"Why?" He said it so aghast that Stella's mouth dropped.

"'Why?' Why do you think? Alyssa is wary of her ever since she sent some threatening text—"

"I don't think—"

"Plus she's in the Vortex Club! Is that not reason enough?" Stella huffed, moving away from him on the bed. They had been watching a movie on his laptop, but the computer had long since been forgotten, asking the couple if they were still watching.

"I mean—" Warren gulped, swallowing whatever reassurances about Max's character that he had left in this throat. It would be no use explaining to Stella about the second side of Max Caulfield he had the (mis)fortune to meet. Doing so would require he spill the beans about her being a time-traveler and that was a conversation he was not prepared to have twice. He had to remember that the Max that everyone was familiar with was not the one he had grown to know that very same afternoon. What was he doing defending another girl to his girlfriend anyway? It was very un-like him. Stella looked at him as if she were thinking the exact same thing.

"What did she need to talk about anyway?" Stella wouldn't press him about details, he assumed. If she felt any sort of discomfort over the matter, she'd never let it show on her face. That was something he didn't particularly enjoy, as he always felt that she was hiding things from him, even after she had spilled her guts about her abusive family, there were other things hidden behind her wry smile.

And he had been there, sitting on some dark curb in the middle of the night, illuminated by some lone street light… Stella had spilled it all, a glazed look in her eyes. He shivered at the memory. It was both a grim time in their relationship and a huge milestone.

He realized he had been zoning out again and snapped his attention back to her face. She looked more than a little put-out this time but just nudged him until he got his thoughts together. They were still a mess. "Sorry, what did you just say?"

"Jeez, Warren! What'd that girl do to you?" She laughed, what sounded to Warren to be strained, and pinched at his cheeks. He flinched back.

"Sorry, sorry… she just said some really weird stuff to me, actually. I'm still sorting it out."

"'Weird stuff'? That sounds… concerning." Her voice was joking but Warren could recognize that look in her eyes anywhere. He didn't want Stella to get even the tiniest idea that there was some weird connection between him and Max so he immediately changed the subject, pulling her into a tight hug. He held her so fiercely that she let out a small squeak in pain. He loosened his grip. The weird thing was imagining a world where he wouldn't be able to do such a thing. For a moment, he thought that this may be the last few minutes they could spend together. Max could flip the switch on his world any second now, he would never see it coming. He pulled her back into a hug and mumbled into her straight-black hair.

"Don't worry about it, okay? She just needed someone to talk to for a second and I helped her. She's just… a freak." He choked out the last word between strokes of her back. It wouldn't do for their final moments to be spent with suspicion between them, but even so, it was difficult to say that about Max, knowing what he knows now. She was stuck in a universe where she so badly didn't belong, all alone. If anyone was a freak, it was him for believing her so readily and since the afternoon had faded into evening, he still did.

"Okay…" her voice was hushed and patient, exactly as he remembered it, and she squeezed him back momentarily before lightly pushing him to the side. She scooted to the edge of the bed. "Well, I better go, I still gotta study for that mini-quiz. You know the one."

"Same here…" he didn't want her to go just yet but his body made no motions to hold her to him. Once she got into her head something she was going to do, even if that thing was walking away from him, he could never stop her. Another part of her that Warren both admired and feared. It was so easy for her to walk away, he worried she would walk right out of his life one day without even a second glance.

Before she stood up, she leaned back towards him and kissed him to the right of his mouth. He was too slow to react, and she was already at the door. "Goodnight," she called, shutting the door quietly. The click of it briefly punctuated that she had left his side.

Which was weird, because even as he contemplated Stella one day leaving him forever, or the fact that she might be more than a little upset that he talked to another girl and wouldn't tell her about what, or even those other aspects he attributed to her character with little proof other than his own assumptions, Warren was still mulling over the passage of time. And how little he probably had left. And how he wanted to spend a few of those final hours with one Max Caulfield.

The minutes clicked by, and the night grew late, but he grabbed his phone anyway, as if he truly did only have seconds left to spare in this world.

….

Somehow Max still felt defeated regardless of how well her conversation with alternate Warren went. Or had badly it had begun. She couldn't believe how easily he went along with it but she was still no closer to figuring out how to get home. It appears, in the midst of his getting cross with her, she had forgotten to ask for his assistance. But how could she now ask Warren to potentially erase his own happy life? At least now, she had an ally she could potentially turn to. He did said they'd talk later, after all. But she worried that he would refuse her request for help after his angry outburst on returning the timeline to "normal."

What was normal anyway? Maybe both timelines existed concurrently with one another? Like a road continuing in two directions, if she jumped to another one, would the other continue on? For a second she contemplated even rewinding back through the conversation altogether, perhaps sparing both her and Warren some sort of unnecessary pain. But while talking with him, it hadn't even occurred to her as an option. The conversation continued on, rewind-free. The way it ought to be.

And a few other things concerned her. Besides the obvious differences in this warped universe that made it so much worse, some other things announced their presence without prompting. When Max had mentioned Kate Marsh, barely an out of place emotion had shown on his face, meaning that Kate hadn't tried to commit suicide. What other things were actually made better by her changing the world? This line of thought gave Max the briefest of pauses but she couldn't spend the rest of her time tallying up the pros and cons of staying or going. She knew she had to leave and she had to figure out how.

She shook her head of any more pseudo-scientific nonsense and considered her next course of action. She could just remain sitting on this campus bench until some time-paradox worked to swallow her up… or she could do something.

But the world sought to do something for her and her phone began to ring. A loud and twinkly little tune. Max cringed and reminded herself to change it at a later date. She froze when she saw the name on the screen, the last person she expected and yet it probably should have been the first. It was Nathan. Heart emoticons littered his contact info and she fought an urge to gag.

She hesitated to answer but her morbid curiosity compelled her forward. She was nothing if not a snooper, made even more prevalent by her ability to rewind time.

"Uh…hello?" Her voice sounded suspiciously thick, even to her own ears. She couldn't recognize the sound.

The voice on the other end yelled out in a surprised bark of relief and she pulled the phone away from her ear. "Max, baby! Where'd you disappear off to?"

She cringed and did her best not to let her knee-jerk response of telling Nathan to "fuck off" get a hold of her. This was a different Nathan so perhaps he wasn't as drawn to the darkness as the one from her timeline? Another positive change, her brain, unwarranted, reminded.

"I had to… run some errands… sorry," she choked on her apology, wondering just how weirder this conversation could get. But she was numb to it, as if she were an outsider watching an episode of the sitcom that is her life.

"What kind of errands?" His voice sounded steady but hurried like he needed the answer and he needed it now. Max did her best to appease him quickly.

"I had to meet someone."

"Someone? Someone who? Who was it, Max?" His voice picked up a measure in volume and Max pulled the phone away from her ear again, suddenly feeling like she was talking to a panicked dog. She didn't remember Nathan being this loud, no matter how much he liked to disturb the peace.

"A teacher!" She matched his tone, not liking the anxious lift of his voice. She spit out the first thing she could think of that might not inspire his famous temper. But it never came. He immediately sighed loudly into the phone, blowing out a long, crackling exhale in Max's earpiece.

"Right, well, give me a heads-up next time, you scared me."

She stared dumbfounded into the distance, her phone laid limply in her hand. The last thing she expected to hear was Nathan's tender and concerned voice being directed at her. She wanted to shiver and yet she also felt a cool relief slide down her spine. The hitch in her shoulders began to relax.

"I'm… sorry?" Her apology felt a tad more genuine this time, yet she still couldn't un-knit her brows from their screwed up position.

"It's fine, long as you bring your sorry ass over here. I missed you." His voice was low and heavy and Max's eyebrows shot into her hairline all over again. She was brought back into some sort of twisted reality where up was down and Nathan was hitting on her in the most innocent way. Of all the ways to imagine him in a relationship, this was the furthest from it. She only knew Nathan as the "evil" member of the Vortex Club that preyed on weaker targets and had a messed up family. But far from what she had seen of him in the passing hallways of her school, she knew she didn't truly know him. The softer side of him, or the vulnerable side, it was a part that was inside, hidden away from those who were unworthy. Or could it be the effect of her tampering with time and that her very alternative presence is what brought about such a change? Max couldn't believe it still. How could she have tamed the boy?

She couldn't face him either way, not after what had happened to Kate. She knew it wasn't fair to place blame on 'him' but he still embodied the same spirit, the same persona that housed the darkness that put Kate on the roof. She steeled her nerves and ground her teeth. She wanted answers to questions she shouldn't even be asking.

"Sorry, Nathan," she spoke his name, without malice this time, "I can't meet," she heard a groan on the other end and continued, "but can we talk for a minute?"

"Anything, babe." The pet name made her wince but she carried on, listening to what sounded like him adjusting his position on the other side. Once he was comfortable and ready, she began to speak after taking her own mental precautions. She wasn't entirely certain she wanted the answers and what good would they be anyway? What was she trying to prove to herself by knowing what she already could sense in the back of her mind: That Nathan was for the better in this timeline.

"How long have we been going out for?"

He smacked his lips on the line and made an exasperated noise. "Come on, Maxie, you know I don't have an exact number. Like what, a month now? Two? Something like that. Why? Is there an anniversary coming up?" His voice was gruff, disappointed for not knowing the precise length of time. Like he failed her somehow. Max could've guessed this one as much, they'd only been in school for a short while now. It sure didn't take long for them to get together, Max thought mournfully. She would've expected higher expectations of herself, even her alternate self. Did they fall for one another that badly? Max shook her head and continued on.

"Was there a Vortex Club party recently? Was Kate Marsh there?"

"Kate Marsh?" He questioned. "I don't even know who the fuck that is."

"Kate? Religious Kate? She has a big blonde bun most of the time?"

"Religious… oh, you mean the Jesus-humping freak?" he laughed shortly, "no way she'd be at a Vortex Club party."

"Don't call her that!" Max scolded on reflex in defense of her friend. She held her palm against the rising redness in her face, and hoped to soothe the heat before it got a hold of her. This was the Nathan she knew him as. Needlessly cruel.

He was immediately on the defensive. Max swore if she could see him, he would've had both palms up. "Jeez, sorry, sorry, I didn't know you knew her. Sorry, Max, I mean it."

Her hand lowered to her side, all the anger inside vanishing like a doused candle. He kept riling her up in a predictable way but then shutting down all expectations. An apology? And one that actually sounded sincere? It put her on an edge where she could feel herself becoming more and more unbalanced. She pressed on.

"So did you see her at the party or not?"

"No, I didn't. I wasn't even there."

Max could tell she was entering a memory she couldn't possibly remember herself. Making a fool of herself or revealing too much information about her ignorance of the timeline barely crossed her mind.

"Why not?"

"… Come on, Max, are you messing with me? Are you on something that I don't know about?"

"On something?" Max cringed. Looks like she was into drugs. She wondered if it was because of Nathan's influence or if her own drug use led her to Nathan's arms in the first place. How intimate could they even be if they were doped up all the time? Why did she start using? Just to party? Max shook her mind of the distracting tangents. "No! Just, why weren't you there?"

"Well, duh, Max…" he crooned. Max didn't like the sound of his slick voice. His words slid from his mouth in such a way that he couldn't have revealed such a voice to anyone but a loved one. It was joking and rough all in one, and most of all… "I couldn't have been at that party because I was with you all night… don't you remember?" A metaphorical eyebrow raised in her direction.

Completely and utterly suggestive.

She swallowed a scream and a bumbling choking noise spilled out. Her curiosity really would be the death of her one day. She felt like she was already dead. But amongst all the internal despair, a quiet intensity washed over her when she thought of her religious friend. This must mean Nathan didn't drug her after all? Even Warren seemed unfazed when she briefly mentioned Kate Marsh's name. Unless, perhaps Warren didn't know her very well either? She found that hard to believe. The pair had always held a fond closeness for one another. If Nathan didn't know and Warren didn't know, where did that leave Kate?

"Victoria told me the party was lame anyway," Nathan continued on, completely oblivious to Max's struggle with reality. "We didn't miss anything."

Every force in the world told Max she would regret her next question but insanity had already taken a hold of her. "What… what did we do instead?"

Nathan scoffed, unexpectedly, "You must be high. We watched that dumb movie you love so much. I mean—not dumb movie, 'charming classic' as you call it." She could feel him roll his eyes.

Max released a steady stream of air. More than a few things revealed themselves to her with that simple sentence. One—the pair hadn't engaged in any… lewd activities normal for a couple to engage in, and two—the Max of this universe still had somewhat similar interests. She wasn't sure why that was such a comforting thought, as if, if need be, alternate Max could easily assume the role of "Maxine Caulfield." If not for a few rather large obstructions, one of which she was on the phone with still. A longer interaction than she thought necessary-

"Oh yeah, and we screwed around a bit."

Max blanched and felt her soul begin to leave her body. She quietly composed herself, as well as she could even call it that, and almost felt like she wanted to laugh out loud, strangely enough. It was just too ridiculous for her to handle.

Shaking her head, she got the answers she wanted and then some, and didn't want to prolong a conversation that was threatening to destroy her.

"Nathan—" she coughed, "I've gotta—"

"You okay, Max? Just hold on- listen for a sec. I know I've been kind of an asshole lately. I just want you to know I'm still trying. It's hard… but I'm so fucking glad you're there to help me. You don't know what it means to me…" he paused, a stone-like presence in the air, "This must sound out of the blue or whatthefuckever but its been on my mind so… thank you…" He sighed loudly, his voice wavering, either from the static on the phone or something else. She heard a rustling on the other end like he was running his hand through his hair repeatedly. She heard something smack onto the floor in the distance.

Max was stock-still, cradling the phone next to her ear like it was a bird whispering its secrets. She heard a side of Nathan she had never thought possible and a stream of shock was busy coursing its way through her. Her eyebrows tilted, and for a millisecond, she thought she might shed a tear from hearing the sad sincerity in his voice. She heard the pain of someone trying so desperately to change and someone who actually had the assistance to do so. She knew this wasn't the case in the alternate timeline where Nathan suffered and dealt out suffering so readily.

"Max?" Nathan began after the silence on the line had become deafening. She still didn't know what to say. What would alternate Max say in this situation? What would anyone say?

The only word she had the courage to summon was his name and even that held a weight to it. "Nathan…"

"I don't expect you to respond to that, I know, it's lame and stupid, whatever. Just don't tell Victoria I said all that embarrassing shit, I just wanted you to hear it." He sighed again, this time a tinge of regret littered his words and she disliked the sound of it. For some reason, she hated this feeling of disappointing this boy with her silence, Nathan of all people. But to her he was and wasn't Nathan. He seemed like another classmate, but maybe it was because she only heard his voice and didn't have to face him in person. If that were the case, she worried where the conversation would have led instead. She might not have considered his words at all and opted to escape his presence as quickly as possible.

Her warped mind had taken over full-force by now and her mouth moved of its own accord, addressing this boy and not the Nathan she knew. "It's not lame and stupid. Thank you for saying so. I'll… I'll always be there to help you, okay?" She clutched the phone so hard she worried it might crack under her grip. "So don't get any weird ideas… you have someone that cares about you…" Her eyes darted in every direction until she decided to just squeeze them shut. The line grew quiet.

"I love you, Max."

Her eyes sprung open and her mouth fell slack.

"Augh, fuck. I didn't want to say that over the fucking phone!"

She couldn't speak. It felt like the ability to form words was stolen away.

"Don't say anything, I—you said you had to go right? Just… come find me later! I want to see you. Augh fuck it."

He hung up with a dejected beep and she held the phone to her ear, listening to the quiet hum of an empty line. Slowly, her arm dropped to her side and she slipped her phone back into her pocket. She adjusted her cardigan and straightened her bangs. She was distracted. But she knew she had a commitment to another task. She had to charge towards her uncertain future, a future in another timeline. It couldn't matter to her that Nathan could be helped, could be changed with her help. It couldn't affect what she had to do. She had to keep a level mind and a tough resilience. Nathan was dark and twisted, she knew this for a fact. She had to remind herself.

Even though he foolishly confessed and hung up out of embarrassment… She had to be cold and ready. Even though he thanked her to being there for him. Chloe needed her more. There were friends who were in trouble in the alternate world. She was in trouble. Warren was in trouble. Her classmates… all in trouble in the alternate world.

The alternate world that didn't even exist anymore.

Max made her way in the direction of the dorms before realizing she was going the wrong way. She had to go to Chloe's house. She had to… just had to figure something out. Her feet slowed, scuffing softly on the grass, before coming to a complete stop.

The sky was nearly dark, the lights flickering on in the coming blackness. The wind picked up and ruffled her hair. She brushed it away and looked up at the school. It was peaceful and quiet, as if the inner turmoil of Blackwell didn't exist. There was no missing Rachel, no weird weather, no drugs and partying and bullying.

She thought about Warren's confident smile, Nathan's sincere apology, the lack of Kate's demise, even her own status within the school. She was both liked and hated. She could turn things around on her own though, people changed all the time, it wasn't impossible. Different circumstances lead people down different paths all the time. She felt herself fading. Wavering.

Maybe she could have a different path. Maybe this was the right path. Everyone seemed happier, the consequences seemed less dire, the world seemed content in itself. She could still solve the mystery from here.

And yet, she thought of Chloe, confined to her chair. She had her father. She seemed happier? Sadder? In some sense of the word. She was Chloe still but she wasn't the Chloe that Max knew. Then again, how could Max know who Chloe was? She hadn't even seen her in over five years. Suddenly she was an expert on what Chloe wanted?

But that quiet calm that Chloe exuded, that acceptance of the universe as it was, it wasn't Chloe. In Max's world, it didn't make sense. She couldn't handle the thought of it continuing to exist even at the cost of… everything.

Max's knees shuddered, weak with fear, and the knowledge of what she needed to do.

She looked back at the stoic walls of Blackwell Academy, the many faces of her peers flashing through her mind with distasteful looks. They looked at her with contempt. And she saw herself, looking the exact same way.

'What a selfish girl,' the look said as it watched Max charge forward towards the location of the bus stop.

She mentally apologized to Nathan. She wouldn't be coming to see him. Not today.

Not ever.

}{

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone, this was kind of a different chapter... about Warren's relationship with Stella and about Nathan. It's not very happy :( but I suppose if this happened in-game, it wouldn't have been a very happy situation either.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it and thank you all so much for the reviews! It makes me so happy to know that there are people out there enjoying a story that I could write. I'll definitely keep up with my Warren and Max shenanigans. There really isn't enough fanwork of the two. Like I said before, I have a story in the making...a big one. I've slowed down a bit because of school but I won't let it stop me.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


	3. Second

}{

He found her, crumpled, in front of the academy, holding a large book tightly to her chest. She didn't look up when he approached and instead curled further into herself.

He plopped down to her side, opting to give her a suitable amount of space. He looked up at the purple sky and briefly imagined how a sunset would look right now. He could picture one clearly and it made him feel nostalgic for some reason. But all that lit the area now were the bright lights of campus.

She was breathing slowly but in ragged gasps that he could barely catch. He was afraid to look at her, afraid of what he might see when he looked into those pale eyes. Whatever it was she had done or seen in the small moments they were apart had taken a toll on her and every atom in his body fought the urge to question her. He asked questions, he figured things out with an equation or a line of text, but he couldn't help her now, whatever it was that was plaguing her.

Suddenly, he didn't feel very smart.

He shifted awkwardly next to her, leaning back on both palms. She resorted to quiet sniffling and had yet to make any real indication that she knew he was there. Her arms wrapped around herself and he felt a stone in his gut. Something about this image was very familiar to him but he couldn't place it. He swallowed thickly, his fingers twitching to move but remained pressed into the dirt. Small rocks left imprints on his palms, but he didn't dare move for fear of breaking the stillness of the scene.

Some time passed and she finally loosened her grip on the tome so that it fell flat on her lap. He realized that it was a photo album. But before he could shift his eyes in the direction of the movement, she was already speaking in low notes.

"She asked me to… I can't believe it," she rubbed at her wet eyes.

"Max…" The name fell from his tongue unwarranted and he felt like a stranger. And for all intents and purposes, he was one.

She finally lifted her head, acknowledging his presence, and then wiped furiously at the leftover tears. She attempted a smile and it was strained with the effort of someone already on the brink.

"Hi Warren," she said hoarsely.

"Hi," he choked out, his throat dry from watching her struggle to compose herself.

"How are things with Stella?" Max asked after a moment. She brought her knees up to her chest and squeezed them, and looked out to the courtyard. There was only darkness beyond the light that illuminated them now.

The curious topic of choice made him stutter for a second, trying hard himself to think of an answer that was truthful. How are things with Stella? Even he couldn't really answer that question. Sure they were a couple, and got along, and he really cared about her, deeply cared about her… He could never be sure with Stella, and the anxiety of knowing whether she would be there one day and not the next was starting to creep into his consciousness. He loved Stella with all his heart… he did. He must.

Who else would he have?

He looked at Max again, she was twiddling with her shoes, the album pressed between her thighs and her chest. She appeared to be waiting for an answer, any answer probably, to distract her from whatever she was troubled by.

"We're…" He debated on whether he ought to stretch the truth or not. Though what did it honestly matter what Max thought about his relationship? He shook his head, not sure himself where that train of thinking would lead him. He hunched his back and adopted a thoughtful look. "We've been better."

Her head lifted. "Really? Why? What's the matter?"

He suppressed a grin and peered off to the side. She was distracted (and surprisingly interested), but at the expense of him divulging his love life. Why would that make him grin? He frowned extra hard for good measure and looked back at her.

"Well… when she heard I'd been talking to one Maxine Caulfield…" he raised an eye at her and she shied away, almost in shame. He kept up a light atmosphere even though the truth of the situation was eating away at him.

"Oops," she mumbled. "I forgot my reputation precedes me here… was she that upset?" She placed the album to her side and sat cross-legged, peering at him with her chin in her palm, mimicking his hunched position. He almost wanted to laugh, they must've looked like they were hatching some sort of plan, and the grim reality of it all made it all the more funnier.

He shook his head. "To be honest, I don't even know. I can never tell with her. She acts like it doesn't bother her… but then she just walks away." For a split second, Stella's hurt face manifested itself in his mind and he began to feel guilty for discussing her with Max of all people, the person that must've caused Stella's ire in the first place. But his mouth kept moving, a mountain of issues he's had with the love of his life now spilling out. Several times he wanted to stop but Max's curious and honest gaze told him to keep going. He talked about his fears with Stella most of all. How it felt like any day would be his last with her, amidst all the good days they had, every second felt on the line.

At the end of his mini rant, Warren waved his palm in mid-air, "sorry to go off like that. I do care about her, obviously."

"Of course," she nodded, "I'm sure she cares about you in equal doses."

He stifled a chuckle, suddenly feeling sorry for himself, pathetic that he'd go off on a perfect stranger like this. I guess it never occurred to him before that he hadn't actually discussed his concerns with anyone else. He was severely lacking in the friends department sometimes, at least when he was in a committed relationship.

He looked over at Max, waiting idly and seriously for an answer, and suddenly thought that she would've made a very good friend.

Not sensing his thoughts, she continued, "she probably just shows it in a different way. Maybe she's… scared you'll walk away first? She probably doesn't want to lose you, but doesn't want to get hurt." Max paused, mulling over her words, "so, I guess, by trying to do that, she ends up hurting you."

Warren was listening, and yet not at the same time. Her words made sense, and coupled with Stella's horrid upbringing, he wouldn't be surprised that being in a relationship might be difficult for her at some level. Now he felt bad for even being upset in the first place. He sighed. "You might be onto something," he leaned back on his palms and peered into the black sky. It was curiously dark, like they were the only corner left on a slowly burning photograph, the edges of their world singed away. His thoughts drifted away in the eerie quiet of the night.

"Don't worry, she definitely loves you, Warren," came her quiet reply.

His head whipped in her direction and having been lost in thought for so long, hadn't noticed when she placed a hand gingerly on his shoulder. He glanced at it, unbidden, and she removed it self-consciously.

"I—I wish I could feel as certain as that." He touched his shoulder where her hand had been, inwardly smacking himself for making her feel uncomfortable.

"You're easy to love," she shrugged but Warren felt his gut twist upon hearing those words. "Maybe you should tell her how you feel? It might help her realize how she's been affecting you."

"What did you just say?"

"Huh? How you should—"

"No, the first part." He was sitting up now, giving his companion a steady look. He wanted to hear those words again, from somebody's mouth. Who could have imagined that they would come from…

"Uh? Oh… how you're easy to love?" Max rubbed at her arm uncertainly and raised an eyebrow.

"You really think that?" He blinked back in surprise.

Max stifled a laugh at Warren's comical expression. "Well…I know from first hand experience," she teased.

He watched her for a few seconds longer, waiting for any indication that she was messing with him somehow. When he saw none, he coughed into a laugh that spread across his whole body. "You're kidding me… Max Caulfield loves nerdy ol' Warren Graham? Never thought I'd see the day. Honestly. Does the "other" Warren know about this?"

Thinking the mood had pleasantly risen, Warren grinned, thinking Max would be doing the same. But when he glanced up again, her expression was grim. At the mention of the other timeline, Max went still, and her eyes fell on the album to her side with an expression of utter disdain. Her job here wasn't done yet. There was still the unspoken issue floating in the air.

Warren tried hard to maintain his grin, even as it fell off his face. He knew what she must be thinking. That her time here was limited. And her alternate timeline, whatever or whenever or wherever it is, contained someone else: a different him, and a different her.

He felt sorry for bringing it up and let out a deep exhale, hoping to just blow the last conversation away. Oddly, a part of him felt disappointed that he wouldn't be given an answer to his last question-

"No," came a quiet voice.

Warren's head fell forward like a trapdoor on a hinge, awoken from his thoughts. "Excuse me?" he said.

His time-travelling companion shuffled in her spot and refused eye-contact. "I mean, no, he doesn't know."

Warren felt an uncontrollable grin stretch across his face. He tried to stop it, even mush it with his fingers but it was already out of the gate. Hearing those words cemented something he had suspected all along, and oddly, it made him giddy when the opposite ought to have been true. He connected the dots, thought through it thoroughly, even unconsciously, and he just knew.

"I see now," he said, nodding.

She still wouldn't look at him. "What?" she mumbled.

"Why I'm not with Stella in your timeline…" he shook his head, "everything makes a little more sense now."

"What…?" she echoed.

"Tell me… what does your Warren think about you?" He propped a hand on his chin and grinned cheekily. Putting Maxine in a corner like this was weirdly amusing and she just kept on giving.

She sputtered but composed herself in an instant, like this was a topic eerily familiar to her. She was barely phased by it, and yet, he supposed, hearing the words from the boy-in-question's doppelganger was a little discomforting.

Max shook her head, looked away and then back at him, her mouth in a twisted line like she was thinking hard about what to say without wanting to say it. "…How should I know…?" she finished pathetically. Warren sighed, the wind out of his sails. He had hoped for a more amusing answer than that. He had been so close to cracking the case that is Max Caulfield Version no. 2. (Or ought he to say no. 1?)

"Oh please," he nudged her lightly, "that is the lamest excuse I've ever heard."

She seemed frustrated, and the very edges of her short hairdo seemed to stand on end. "Well it's a little weird, isn't it? Telling you—him—how he feels! I honestly can't know for sure." She ran a hand through her hair, narrowing her eyes at his candid expression. He took some obvious pleasure in her unruliness, as if he was knocking the Maxine Caulfield of his timeline down a peg. Miss queen bee brought down to his level!

The truth is, he just enjoyed talking to her. And sitting with her in this dark corner of the world, he felt a strange ease.

"Take a wild guess… how does he act around you?" He pressed. "I mean, judging by what you said about him the other day, it sounds like…"

She sighed, already giving up on fighting back. Not worth the trouble apparently, and she had already said too much. "Like I said, he's a good friend of mine. He helps me out a lot when I need him and I help him. He makes me laugh. I guess you could say we're close—but not to the extent that you're thinking!"

Warren busted out laughing. He was too easy to read himself, it seemed. She could see straight through him and he could see her just the same. It was funny, how weirdly in-tune they were to each other, like she wasn't just talking to him, but to all Warrens who were her friend at some point in time, and vice versa. It was an odd thought actually, and he quickly dismissed it. Multiple timelines just reminded him of an unpleasant reality he was soon to face.

"I love him as a friend," she said firmly, finishing his earlier thought in an instance.

Warren had the gall to pout. "Alright, alright, no need to get all defensive about it. I think that's sweet."

She surprisingly grimaced, an unexpected expression. "Sweet, right," she mumbled into her knees. Her face softened, and a forlorn look took its place.

Warren didn't know what to say. The amount of dejectedness she uttered in that single phrase was palpable. But he couldn't guess to what her feelings were directed at. Maybe he was wrong after all, and he could barely read her in the slightest.

His eyes lit up again. "Hold on, that still doesn't answer my question about how he feels about you."

She groaned, "you'll have to ask him yourself, I guess." She smirked, probably sure that this would be the end of this line of questioning.

But he wasn't through having his fun with her, and he didn't want to hear her sad sounding voice weighted with a thousand guilts and pressures. "Okay, I will," he said resolutely. His companion turned to him quickly, eyes wide in confusion.

He continued: "Warren, what do you think about Max?" Her mouth dropped as he angled his body the other direction and adopted a slightly different tone of voice.

"What do I think?" he pantomimed, his voice lower, "she's—"

Max shoved him immediately, but rather than the angry expression he was expecting, she was trying to contain a grin. She moved to cover her mouth as if her sudden laughter was impolite. "You really think the other Warren has such a manly voice?"

He balked in response, a smile peeking through. She was laughing, just what he wanted to see. "Do I not have one already?"

"I'll probably never forget just how much younger you are than me," she retorted.

"Ouch," he mumbled, but without a hint of actual pain. Yes, he knew how young he was, but didn't he make up for it in brains? Besides, only in high school did an age difference of a few years even matter—

He stopped himself mid-thought. It wouldn't do to contemplate excuses for mild age-differences. It would get him nowhere and head him down a path that couldn't possibly apply to his current situation with Max.

While contemplating the unfortunate age difference, Max spoke again. "So what were you going to say about me?"

"Curious now?" he teased, while racking his brain for a suitable answer. What was he going to say? With a stark realization, he found he had a lot he could say, regardless of what little time he had or information possibly gathered. How could that be?

She was staring at him, awaiting an answer. The lingering lightheartedness was slowly fading away.

"She's…" he swallowed, debating whether continuing the joking lower voice was even appropriate anymore. She watched him so intensely and all-of-a-sudden that he was at a loss for words. He found himself leaning away from her as she unconsciously leaned towards him.

Her eyes were just so blue, it was crazy to him. The rational thought of a scientist and his ability to understand the iris and its' colors was blown out the window. Now he was spouting cliché phrases in his head in a complete loop. Blue like the sea, the sky, the heavens. He internally cringed. What was the matter with him?

Before a horrid and wholly unnecessary blush appeared on his cheeks, he straightened himself out and summoned some courage he knew he must have stored somewhere. Courage for what? To speak to this girl he barely knew?

But he did know her. In some vestiges of his mind, he knew so, so much about her.

His mouth spoke without warning and he felt little control over the words that tumbled out of him. The information came out un-summoned, and yet not a trace of untruthfulness crossed his lips.

"She's kind. Smart, in her own way. A little reckless. Self-proclaimed "shy-girl" with more balls of steel than anyone I know. A talented photographer. Brave as hell and willing to go further for someone than most people ever would," his throat caught when he saw her wide-eyed expression, but he continued, staring her directly in the face. He wanted her to hear this. "…She's nosy and clumsy at times…" he saw her blue eyes again and his mind went blank, "… but beautiful…"

If he had anything more to say at that point, the words died on his tongue. The wave that suddenly took over him had passed as quickly as it had come. What had he just said? The pair stared at each other, mouths open.

Max turned away first. "What are you doing, Warren?" she mumbled, "are you messing with me?" Her voice sounded oddly hurt and Warren immediately felt an immense displeasure with himself.

He tried to salvage the situation, still wondering what had come over him. He felt possessed in that moment, like someone had jumped into his body and chose random words for him to say. But even so, he wouldn't take a single one back. It felt right, what he said. And he felt like he had even more to say.

"I—" Apologize. Don't know what came over me. Didn't mean to upset you… is what he thought to say. "—meant every word." He crossed his arms childishly.

"How can you mean any of that? You don't know anything about me." She still wouldn't turn his way, opting to watch the pavement, hiding a portion of her face.

She was right, he knew. Every logical part of his brain knew that she was correct in deducing that. He couldn't possibly know anything of that intimate nature about her being just common students that attended school together and who barely interacted in the first place. He could see how she could interpret what he said as disingenuous.

But the illogical part of his brain was still convincing himself that what he said was nothing but pure truth. He knew the words were delivered to him from somewhere in the universe and he had merely acted as a messenger to the receiver.

"This might sound insane," he mimicked her phrase from just the other day, "but something told me that everything I said was the right thing to say. I may not know these things for a fact but I do know… and I don't know what part of me actually does know but—" he suddenly felt stupid. Now what was he saying? Was he defending his need to compliment her? But, he reasoned, if he could believe her about her time-travel ability, couldn't she believe him?

"Don't hurt yourself, Warren," she said, halting him in his struggles.

He looked at her and he saw a light smile. Her cheeks were tinged pink. The fact that he said anything that could create such a reaction made him want to feel bashful too. "I'm sorry," he said, not really knowing what he was apologizing for.

"No, don't apologize… If the other Warren really thought these things about me, I would be pretty happy. So thank you for trying. It just caught me off guard is all."

His mouth was moving on its own again, watching her sentimental little smile set off a bell in his mind. "But he does! Ah- he really does think those things about you. I know it. I mean, I would, wouldn't I? I mean, I'm him!" He felt himself going off the deep-end again, like trying to defend insanity.

"Warren…" she leaned back a little, trying to take in his disheveled attitude. Her voice was so familiar again, as usual, like she was talking to him. "That's really okay, I get it, you don't have to—"

"He loves you, you know? Augh god, I feel it so strongly, it kind of hurts." He pinched his arm to try and relieve himself of the feeling somehow. He was starting to realize what was happening to him, though he dared not try to understand it. How could he? The same way that time-travel was incomprehensible, this shared consciousness between alternate versions of the same person felt even more impossible.

"What?" she asked, still thinking it was partially a joke. A part of her must have wanted to be angry with him. Her eyebrows dipped lower once his words sunk in.

He rubbed at his eye, it suddenly felt sore. "Now, I'm a scientist, so believe me when I say I have no idea what the hell just happened… but I want to try hypothesize…" he continued towards her undefined expression, feeling like his same lame self again making nerdy jokes. But he could talk to her like this. From the moment he met her, just a day ago even, he knew he could talk to her.

"The other Warren, in whatever form he currently occupies, or did occupy, felt in such a way towards you that it traversed the universe and made its way through my head to make me say something stupid and incredibly corny…" he sighed. Since when did his life attract such crazy occurrences? The storm, his run-in with alternate timeline Max Caulfield, and now this? His inner sci-fi nerd was run amok in joy. His outer-self felt inexplicably overwhelmed.

And yet a calm acceptance overtook him. The universe truly worked in mysterious ways. He may never be the same after this, especially when he looked over at his current companion and the awed look that dressed her features. She must be feeling just as overwhelmed as he did. More-so even, what with the weight of the universe entirely at her fingertips. An unexpected empathy towards her situation grew in his chest and he pressed his hand to it.

While waiting for Max to absorb his pathetic explanation, he turned his head away. How late was it now? It felt like time had stopped just for them to have this conversation. How did a normal day at Blackwell Academy become this? Though he guessed the day was never really that normal to begin with.

"Warren, you are unbelievably cheesy!" she exclaimed from next to him. He turned back to her. Her eyes were shining, with small hands balled into fists. She was laughing and crying at the same time. He couldn't even tell which Warren she was referring to anymore. But her laughter must mean she believed him right? He felt an odd need to cry and laugh along with her, at their ridiculous situation.

He was at a loss for words, but she continued on, "after everything I told you, about my time-travel ability, and how you believed me, it wouldn't be right if I didn't trust you now, right? Have I got you caught up in another fucked up thing beyond my control? What next?" She began to laugh again, but it sounded a little more sardonic than anything.

"Max?" he questioned, slightly unsure. She seemed a little unhinged, but the thought didn't bother him. All that was coursing through him at this moment was his need to comfort her. How many things were falling ill at her hands? And did she feel guilty for it? There was still the issue of the photo album to be dealt with. He hadn't forgotten about it in the slightest, nor did he forget about her reason for returning to this timeline. She still hadn't told him and he wondered if she ever would. The sorrows of time travel must finally have caught up with her.

Her laughter mixed with her sobs and soon she was full-blown crying. The weight of a thousand worlds at her fingertips… it really was a huge burden. He couldn't imagine the pressure.

How had this conversation devolved to his point? It was inevitable, he supposed, and part of him was strangely grateful. Maybe she needed this? Some sort of release? Regardless, her loud and shaking sobs were like a ripping sensation through his head. He had never heard such a sound and never thought Max was capable of making it. She was never one to cry like this, a part of his mind had spoke, unbidden. But at the moment, he only wished to soothe her, consequences be damned.

He reached out with a trembling confidence, placing both hands on either one of her shoulders. He faced her to him, and for half a second, her crying paused as he stared at her with a hard determination, before pulling her into a hug. He pressed her to him, wanting to squeeze out whatever pain or shame she felt within. Her thin frame shook momentarily before slowing to light hiccups. She had wrapped her arms around his back, her hands fisting his shirt before climbing up to rest at the nape of his neck. In any other situation, Warren would have felt an understandable heat rising where her fingers lightly brushed him… and this situation was no different.

His neck burned a bright red and he could feel his face turning the same. But he was determined and adamant in his ability to help this poor girl and he pinched his eyes shut to try and quell the feelings building within him. He felt like the emotions swirling inside him weren't even entirely his own, and yet they also were, in some sense of the word.

She shifted closer to him, and he felt himself swallowing a lump. What the heck was he doing, came some rational part of his mind as it tried to flash him images of his current girlfriend, Stella.

He ignored it, feeling particularly irrational at the moment. He couldn't help himself, he reasoned. He wasn't entirely himself at this given time, which was also true in some weird and otherworldly way. He wanted to curse Warren, wherever he was.

And thank him at the same time.

Max was soon still, her tears long since vanished as she rubbed them unconsciously against his chest. (He twitched as she did so.) She wasn't even crying anymore, and yet neither released the other, as if waiting for the other to make the first move.

He was going to lose all composure if he didn't do something already. He was already being bombarded with multiple (and strong) emotions… he really was just making things harder for himself.

He slowly dropped his hands away and she soon followed suit. The pair looked at one another, a gaze of patient understanding traded between them. The light remains of a grin grew on his glowing red face and she returned a glistening and grateful expression. What had they exchanged in this moment, he wondered silently. What unheard message was transferred between the two? He still felt as if a proxy between worlds, even though what he felt was his own. At the same time, they peered down at their awfully close proximities and scooted away.

Max spoke first after a brief hesitation. "Thanks Warren, I really needed that." She sounded like she truly meant it.

He could only nod in response as he was still trying to calm his blush, incredulous at his own body's shameless display. When was the last time he was this pathetic? It felt like such a long time since being with Stella. His mind whimpered her name a second time. She would not be happy if she knew about this. But he really couldn't spare a thought towards her right now, he guiltily realized.

Battling with some inner demons, he barely noticed when Max turned away to pick up the fallen photo album. She brandished it in front of her, holding it with a newly found vigor. She sat up straighter now, as if the ordeal of minutes before had never even occurred. He inwardly hoped that it was his actions that gave her such a strength. But he knew otherwise. He had become so aware of her in such a short amount of time that it somewhat frightened him.

He appraised her silently, not liking being reminded of the reality beyond their secret little corner of the world. And some uncalled-for disdain grew inside of him as he imagined what she was about to say.

"Warren… I need to return to my time."

}{

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's up party people? I bet you weren't expecting an update! I'm really sorry for the delay but I was studying abroad over the Summer and then school started up again, etc. Anyway, I'm determined to not leave my fics hanging anymore! I WILL finish this one.
> 
> The funny thing is, I had planned to end it THIS chapter but it just took on a life of its own. I had started it a long time ago and then left it alone for months. Since coming back to it, I ended up taking it in a completely different direction than planned. I hope it was for the better and I wonder if you can tell exactly where my writing had changed.
> 
> I really hope you guys enjoyed this! So please review and let me know what you think. There's nothing better than the encouragement of the few people I know who reads what I write just for fun :)


	4. Separate

}{

He swallowed thickly, hoping to relieve himself of the constricting feeling that overtook him at her words. He knew this was coming, he was expecting it for the better part of the entire afternoon and evening, ever since she first mumbled those cursed words of having to rectify her mistakes.

He had reasoned with himself, unintentionally even, as his mind wondered in the presence of Stella or as he walked without a clear destination around campus, that her motivations were beyond his understanding. He reasoned that he ought to accept them, since he had no choice or power in the matter anyway. She could've left and changed the universe without so much as a wave in his general direction. But here she was, flat-out telling him… that she was going to wipe his world from the face of existence.

Needless to say, Warren couldn't help the bubbling anger from searing up inside him. He felt conflicted, emotions of his time and a time forgot all warring for their opportunity to exist. It was probably more complicated than that, he thought briefly, but his knee-jerk reaction was for his face to fall into a simmering glare directed in Max's direction. It didn't hold nearly as much anger as he felt it did and the first tiny pin-pricks of something else were appearing at the corners of his eyes.

She reared back. In fear, shock, or some other label-less emotion and Warren sought to school his features. He was always the rational type (or so he thought) that spoke with the calmness befitting someone with an interest in science. But who was he kidding… he was as emotional as they come.

His throat tightened. Everything in his being wanting to yell such cliché exclamations like: 'You can't!' or 'I won't let you!' or a heart-rending 'why?!' but his gaze softened when he saw her expression of utter dejectedness directed at him. This pained her just as much as it pained him, and he still barely understood why, or this odd connection between them.

"Okay," he said between large inhales of breath. He calmed himself quietly then, and the electrified air between them had settled back into itself. Both pairs of shoulders relaxed, and Max resumed her normal posturing, closing her eyes briefly in what looked like relief or resignation.

Was he really going to accept this fate so readily? Frankly, he hated the idea. He thought she would try to fight this, or even _stay_ , as far-fetched as that sounded. He knew she couldn't stay, and the thing calling her back to her original time was so strong and important that he sensed she would fight to the death whoever tried to stop her.

Even knowing this, truly knowing this, he hated the idea and yet accepted it at the same time. This girl, in the short time he had known her, had completely uprooted everything he ever understood about the world and his own insignificant existence. She was a storm in herself, bringing about a destruction of the foundations of his reality.

Not to mention his emotions.

Warren's heart pulsed again, as it already had several times that day; a strange and stronger pulse than should be medically possible. It started when Max had first approached him, and continued at light intervals throughout her explanation. He chocked it up to the shocking information she had shared with him and perhaps a feeling of sickness that came with it. But only a short while ago, when his confessions of an otherworldly Warren had caused words to spill from his mouth did he realize that this feeling wasn't apart of his everyday. And it had only doubled in intensity.

He resisted the urge to grab at the skin on the lower left of his chest. It hurt, as he had mentioned to her previously in a joking manner, but he hadn't emphasized just how much it truly _did_ hurt. It was like a sinking feeling, where whatever weight inside him had fallen into a bottomless pit that was his stomach. It caused him to flinch and almost gasp. The pain surprised him, but what surprised him even more was that he _enjoyed_ it.

He assumed the feeling was the 'love' that the other Warren had felt for her, and perhaps he was right, but he couldn't be entirely sure. That's sure as hell what it felt like, regardless of what Warren even understood of the feeling. But there was something else twisting in his gut, something passed his original and childish assumptions.

' _What are you doing to me?'_ he begged in his mind. He can't imagine that someone in this universe, that someone being _him_ of all people, could ever feel such a strong sensation. The feeling roiled over him, made him want to laugh, want to cry… he'd never felt anything like it.

But as he looked over at Max's stricken and concerned expression, the feeling returned stronger than ever and he couldn't help the groan that escaped his lips.

"W-Warren?" she asked quietly, her face a mix of several emotions as she had taken in his previous joking air, to his hard confessions of the universe, to his tenderness, his sudden anger, and now this. She leaned over and placed a hand on his shoulder, steadying him as he rocked forward.

"Don't mind me," he gasped, "just battling some inner demons…" he mustered a smile and Max's face only fell further.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling sick?"

Her question was so normal and grounded in reality that Warren couldn't help but chuckle. He didn't know _what_ he was feeling, only that it was eating him from the inside. It still hurt, but what made him double over was the weight in which it rolled over him, trying desperately to tell him something.

"Seriously…" Max continued, almost reproachful at his joking manner, "do I need to call someone? You're starting to worry me." She squeezed his shoulder.

"It's okay, it's okay," he smiled, actually starting to feel a little better as she rubbed soothing circles in his back. If anything, he never was one to want to appear weak and in need of assistance in front of a girl, least of all, as he had recently discovered, Max. "Just a stomach-ache," he lied.

For all their truth-telling and confessions of the universe, suddenly Warren didn't want his time-travelling companion to know anything about the emotions he had just experienced. It felt wrong to tell her considering the lightness that had previously enveloped their company together. He felt that odd closeness with her, the type that made it so easy to speak and discuss things as if they were other peoples' secrets and not his. Sure, he could share other Warren's deepest desires, but those weren't really his emotions, were they? But now, the need to hide this part of himself was strong enough to halt him in worrying her further, hoping to preserve that feeling of light camaraderie they had built up so quickly.

He also felt he was just being a fool. Or perhaps just stalling for time. What was he trying to do expanding time that was already at an end? Whatever it was, he didn't feel a need to divulge this information. Hadn't he already told her enough?

The air felt different now, regardless of what he tried to hide from her, and Max definitely felt it too as she awkwardly shifted her hand away from him, to the photo album still in her lap.

Silence fell and the pain of a minute ago had already faded away as if it never happened. Warren sat back up and looked at her to where Max refused to meet his eyes.

"So this is it, huh?" he said with a delicate curl of his mouth. "How does this work anyway?" his curiosity getting the better of him as the question as to what the photo album's true purpose came to attention.

All the confidence Max had had when she grabbed the album only moments before had drained out of her, her skin a matching pallid tone. She hesitated, opening the cover with shaking fingers. He once again had to resist the foreign urge to grab onto them to steady her. He truly was beginning to feel sick with himself as Stella appeared again in his mind.

She flipped the book to a random page and began her explanation with a stoicness uncharacteristic to her. She described the moment she discovered her ability to travel to different periods of time simply by holding onto a photograph, and how that was why she ended up in this universe in the first place. She travelled to the distant past through a photograph. Otherwise, her explanation continued, she could reverse time simply through the flick of her palm.

That caught his attention and Warren interrupted her, eyes wide. "You can just rewind time at the drop of a hat just like that?" Something else occurred to him and he sat up straight, wary and curious, "have you been rewinding this conversation at all?"

Max's expression opened up after that, feeling like she was being accused of something unsavory, and she waved her hands in front of her face. "No, no! I haven't even tried once since coming to this time…"

He liked seeing her flustered like this, he mused again, and a grin returned to his face, _himself_ wanting to see more of this side of her. However, he quelled anymore of his more questionable remarks he had at the ready. He was already beginning to feel even more like an asshole then he believed possible considering his utter neglect of Stella. Her name thrummed a steady beat in his mind, it growing louder the longer he spent in Max's presence.

"Oh yeah, and why's that?" he settled on asking, his head in his palm. He was starting to feel a little tired, the night having drifted on far too long already. He wanted to sleep, but the adrenaline kicking through his veins would prevent that from happening for a very long time.

"Because…" Max began, "it wouldn't feel right… since this isn't where I belong. Sure, I can rewind time for any manner of dumb stuff in my time, but here?" she merely shook her head.

"What kind of dumb stuff?" he asked, his voice still light, bordering on playful. He was trying his damnedest to get back to the airy atmosphere they had settled into very briefly earlier… he hoped it would make the transition back into reality a tad easier for him to accept.

Then again, a side of him knew, that he was just trying to distract her.

And it had worked beautifully, Max already on a tirade of how she would rewind to fix conversations with her peers, water her plant, take a photo, or any number of arbitrary everyday tasks. She glossed over her more questionable activities, such as using her ability to sneak into other peoples' rooms to gather information. Warren laughed at that. Maybe Max wasn't the saint that other Warren regarded her as after all.

"I probably would use your power the very same way…" he commented, hoping to ease any tension or embarrassment she might have felt, and she nodded her appreciation, holding back a laugh of her own.

"Ah-! I just remembered the time I used my power to help you get an A on your chemistry project. Took me some time to weasel the info from the teacher, but I managed."

Warren sat up. "I needed help with chemistry? Can't say I'm not a little disappointed in my other self. But thanks, regardless," he smiled, it not quite reaching his eyes.

' _I feel evil_ ,'Warren thought to himself. Like dangling keys in front of a child, he was working to occupy his companion's thoughts. He never thought himself capable of such an act before, a heaviness once more weighing over his shoulders.

"You should've seen your face…" Max continued before her eyes widened to the size of saucers and Warren had full reign on the blues of her irises. He caught himself staring but then she immediately began rummaging through her bag with fervor.

"Why didn't I think to look in the first place? I'm such a moron," she mumbled to herself, quickly pulling out a well-worn looking journal. She flipped the pages open, sighing in relief with what she saw, and turned to a particular spot. She waved the page in his face and surprise colored his skin at what he saw.

It was _him_. Looking like himself, as he always did. He was sitting at a lab table, flashing a grin and a peace sign. It was odd since Warren had no recollection of taking such a picture, but it felt so natural and real that he knew it was entirely possible a photo like this could exist. He just couldn't remember of course, since it never happened to him.

Shock enveloped him as his hands slowly inched up to grasp the photograph. He was literally in the process of glimpsing another universe, another timeline, another… _version of himself_. Talking about it was one thing, but actually seeing it? Warren was at a loss for words, and he scoffed in disbelief, a laugh escaping his throat at what he was seeing.

"Handsome devil," he tried to joke, but he couldn't mask the tremble that shook his voice. He couldn't take his eyes away, the scientist that he strived to be was taking a bigger battering in a single day than most people experience in a life time. He thought of what he could do with this information, what he could do to change the world if something of this nature were ever to get out into the public. The papers he could publish, the research he could conduct…

But he quickly dismissed any and all ideas of the sort… Max wasn't some experiment… and he certainly couldn't just announce to the world that time-travel existed. His rational mind returned just as fast as it had flown away from him. There was a lot he could do with this information, with _evidence_ even, but he knew he never would. Whatever force held him back, he guessed it was the one currently sitting next to him, a mixed expression on her face.

"Right?" she said offhandedly and Warren glanced at her, but she was already steamrolling ahead, "thanks to my photography skills at the very least," she teased.

"Do you have more?" he asked with more enthusiasm than necessary and leaned towards her. She obliged hesitantly, but entirely willing, enjoying his interest.

She flipped through the photos, explaining each one briefly. A lot of them were inconsequential things, like statues or animals, but he drank in every single one like he was parched. Her fingers suddenly moved to turn a page, her voice quiet but Warren dismissed this and pointed, disregarding any tact in his need to see more. "Who's that?" he asked at the unfamiliar girl with the unusual blue hair.

Max stiffened and Warren immediately began to suspect just who that girl was, and without even an ounce of doubt, he already knew. The person she loved. And the person she hurt.

"Sorry," he said quietly and she shook her head. It would never be his intention to hurt the poor girl, and he was feeling more sorry by the second. Her smile faded considerably but didn't disappear. She peered at the photo, half-longingly, and Warren merely watched her, waiting for whatever she would concede to revealing about her life.

"That's Chloe," she said, "my best friend from since I was a kid." Her hand touched the photo and her fingers flinched away from it, as if she felt it pulse in response. She frowned.

"…What happened to her?" His voice dropped a level, quietly matching the tone of the now more somber mood. He prodded her gently, but firmly, and hoped for a proper explanation. It would be with this story that Warren would finally come to understand just exactly why Max needed so desperately to leave this timeline. Something great and significant enough that had caused her to disrupt the natural flow of time in the first place.

Her eyes drooped close as she launched into a brief recollection of her relationship with Chloe, how they had drifted apart and reconnected. She discussed the differences between the timelines... how different they were, and how Max's influence and interference in Chloe's father's death had made such a great impact. Warren could do nothing but nod as the information revealed more and more about Max as a person if anything, to go so far for a single person, only for it to blow up in a way she couldn't particularly come to accept nor deny.

Chloe was miserable in one sense, in her original timeline, but miserable in another sense, in the current time. As Max continued, her words devolved into what sounded like a tirade, anger directed at herself. Her eyes misted, but no tears fell. Her hands balled into fists as she entered the last leg of her speech.

"When you found me… I had just come from her house. I ran out of there like a bat out of Hell when she asked me… she—," a tear fell, "she asked me to… end her life."

At this, Warren's jaw dropped. He couldn't for a second imagine the hurt and pain that Max must have felt to have her best friend, the person she was trying to help and save, ask such a thing of her. Chloe had her father back, and yet a part of her life was still missing something, a hole that existed in her universe that could never be filled, no matter what, even if Max transcended time. The thought was depressing, and his eyes blackened at the thought. Max's pain was tangible, and Warren felt a beat of pressure in his chest as her expression passed into grief.

"Max, I am so, so sorry," he said, with lack of anything better to say. He was bad at this, he knew. But he also knew that he could better understand her reasoning for wanting to leave this time so badly. There was nothing left for her here, not anymore. She couldn't live in a time where a Chloe like her existed, not one so burdened by a life she didn't want.

He wore an expression to match hers as his scheming of keeping her here or distracting her had caught up with him. He felt terrible, and turned his head away to squeeze his eyes shut, disappointment coursing through him. He was being a bad friend and a bad person, and he hated that he felt this way about himself. She didn't belong here. She didn't belong here. _She doesn't belong here._

"Now do you understand?" her words were nothing more than a whisper, but he heard her loud and clear. This was her final explanation and he would receive nothing more. He either had to accept her reason or not, but nothing would change her decision in the end.

He nodded, his eyes steeled. He understood. As much as he disliked the idea, or feared the consequences of her actions, he understood her. In a similar situation, if he were to find himself in one, he would hate to travel to a new time and find Max an empty and quiet shell of herself who wanted nothing more than to die.

He paused in his thoughts, idly wondering why Max was the only person he could conjure in this example. Oh, but he still knew the answer to this very much so and sighed at the obviousness of himself. That roiling pain that plagued him since meeting this mystery girl… it was every incarnation of himself, willing itself to live, to be close to her, mend that connection; it reacted to her in kind, shared her emotions, loved her, berated itself, and died. And the closer she came to deciding to leave, the Warren that he currently was was dying along with it.

Life was fleeting that way, and he never felt more like an insignificant speck than he did at that very moment.

"Yes," he said simply, all humor drained from his face at the conclusion of his own realization.

"I'm sorry I got you wrapped up in all this. I'm really sorry. If anything… I should've rewound and never tried to talk to you. This wasn't very fair of me." She turned away, the stagnant silence settling over the two of them. They were possibly thinking the exact same thing. This was the end.

Instead, Warren shook his head. The thought of never meeting Max in this light was a twinge in his chest that he didn't want to explore. He could've gone on, lived a relatively peaceful life with Stella by his side, continued on at school being mildly bullied until the day he graduated. He could have lived a life unburdened by this strange knowledge and the fear of being erased. But for some reason such a reality sounded so… boring to him, so completely inconsequential and without meaning. "No, I'm glad you did," he said with a genuineness that surprised him. Did he enjoy this type of pain too?

She eyed him sadly and unsure. "Do you mean that?"

"I've never had a more interesting day in my entire life… so thank you, Max. It really was a pleasure to meet you," he placed a hand to his chest, feeling rather dramatic at the moment. His head tilted, and a smile grew on his face. "We'll see each other again soon, won't we?" A tear rolled down his cheek.

Max reared back, a quiet gasp escaping her lips. She had worked miraculously hard to keep the reality of the situation from hitting her, but seeing his torn expression, cut between a sad acceptance and such a friendly admission, it broke whatever wall she had carefully constructed around herself in order to stay firm. She had had enough of seeing her closest friends in pain for one day

"Oh, Warren, please don't look at me like that," she begged, tears returning to her eyes.

"Sorry," he said, touching his fingers to his cheek. The wetness there momentarily shocked him until he saw the tears flowing freely from Max's own eyes. There it was again, that odd _need_ to reach out and touch her. He let it control him, not worrying about consequences anymore. Wherever he was, or whenever, was of no concern to him.

His hand reached out to cup her face, wiping her tears away with the pad of his thumb. She briefly smiled before leaning into his touch. The movement felt so natural, and he no longer felt the burning embarrassment that came from his interaction with the girl. Something had changed between them in the brief time of a few hours, an entire lifetime worth of interaction and friendship being summed up in the blip of a second. A culmination of every iteration of who he was and who she was in several spanning universes.

The thought dizzied him, as well as the sensation of skin against skin that he was currently experiencing. He felt drunk. And in this drunken state, he languidly pulled her face closer to his, the pair staring at one another in some silent understanding. She didn't resist in any fashion; in fact, her hand came up to rest over his own.

He could think of nothing else at the moment, his mind a blur. He really wondered if he would see her again, and if this was his last chance to say or do anything as the Warren that he currently occupied.

So he did something he knew current Warren would never do in a million lifetimes, but specifically this one, and closed the distance between them completely.

It was a chaste kiss, light and sweet, but not one without a heavy meaning. He felt the longing within him twist at his actions, and his grip on Max momentarily tightened as his hand slid from her cheek to her neck in order to steady her against him. His held tilted, against his own wishes, his body reacting to her of its own accord, and his lips moved against hers with a quiet intensity.

When her mouth parted in a soft sigh did Warren finally realize where he was and any and all haziness in his brain was wiped out in an instant. He flinched back as if he had been burned, his hand still on her neck, while Max's eyes fluttered open in surprise at the sensation.

"A-Ah, I didn't mean to do that!" he cried out in uncharacteristic panic, suddenly and painfully aware of what he had just done. He expected an equally loud response but Max merely shyly turned away, possibly sharing his sentiment. Then again, the pair realized, neither of them seemed particularly against the idea.

"Don't have a cow, Warren…" Max admonished. Regardless of if he meant to do it or not, it had already happened, and feeling guilty about it was just going to make her feel bad. Redness colored her cheeks.

He saw her worrying her lip between teeth and he immediately crashed back into Earth, reality continuously beating him over the head. "Not that I didn't want to," he said reassuringly, his eyes not once leaving her mouth. "Gods, what am I saying…" He ran a flustered hand through his hair before moving to touch the skin of his own lips. He still couldn't believe what had possessed him, and what was _still_ possessing him, urging him on with a feverish longing to grab onto her again.

However, he resisted, and the moment caught up with the pair of them. Warren looked at Max and the two companions locked eyes briefly before launching into shy laughter.

"Pretend that was from other Warren, will you? I'm sure the chump has been dying to do the same." He couldn't stand to look at her for very long and he turned away to steady the hammering in his chest. This was a little too much for _him_ to handle, but just as interestingly, he realized that a lot of that inner turmoil… was just as much current Warren as it was something else. The thought gave him pause, and another ashamed blush rose to his cheeks.

Unaware of Warren's meandering thought process, Max spoke up, "I'll pass it along to him, shall I?"

He looked up at her then, the meaning of her words bringing a smile back to his face. "He'd like that." And he certainly knew for a fact that he would, the flaring in this stomach told him as much.

The two fell into companionable silence, each one looking out into the distance. Warren could swear he could see the very beginning vestiges of a sunrise peeking over the horizon. He knew that couldn't be true, that time hadn't passed that quickly in their conversations. Or it did, he couldn't know. Time had truly escaped him, he could never fully grasp or understand it, certainly not after this.

But the arrival of a new day broke them out of their reverie, a reminder that the day would go on, and their private world would soon be overwhelmed by an outside force that could never understand. It hurried him, and Max seemed to feel the same as the two of them got to their feet and faced one another.

He held her by the elbow as she absently flipped open the album and pulled out a photograph of two smiling faces.

"This is it, _this time_ , huh?" Warren laughed lightly. The night had extended so far beyond his reach, he felt like his universe was ending for the fifth time already. They had already said goodbye several times it felt like and the clenching in his chest and stomach loosened.

She reached out in response, pressing her hand against his forearm and lightly squeezing. "I'm sorry," she said.

Warren merely shook his head. She didn't know what would happen to him, and neither did he. He didn't want to risk saying anything that might shed some hope on their situation. For all they knew, Warren was soon to become a nonexistent blip in the universe, and everything he knew and held dear would be wiped off the map. He couldn't let any sort of strain weaken his conviction on letting her go and so he kept his mouth shut. Her apology held all the weight of what either one was feeling already: Fear, remorse, and acceptance.

"Goodbye, Warren," she said again with that final tone that he loathed so much as she carefully held the photograph up to eye level. She solemnly turned away but Warren kept his gaze fully focused on her. His eyes ate up the details of her features, her skin, her hair. He probably would never forget this face.

He was shaking in anticipation.

"I'll see you around." He hoped that was true.

Tears sprung to her eyes but she didn't turn back to look at him, her eyes clearly trained on the photo in front of her. His eyes slid close, not sure what sort of feeling would pass over him as the inevitable finally happened. It was curious. He was calm. And for a brief second he thought he saw a bright light shine through his eyelids. Perhaps the sun had risen. He saw this sudden white light…

And then it was black.

.

.

.

}{

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: Hey everyone! It's me! I actually managed to post in a timely manner lol. This chapter was a little different than the last few... things changed pretty dramatically, huh? Anyway, I really struggled with how I was going to take this story. I originally was only going to make it a two-shot but it just... kept going. And at this point, I could have continued it on and on or ended it here... so I settled on ending it. A story like this couldn't really fit into the canon if I continued on. Plus, I feel this shorter length matched the bittersweet nature of its existence (lmao sorry Stella.) I hope you all agree and understand! Plus... I didn't want to post my new LiS fic until this one was finished. (There will probably me one more epilogue chapter after this though.)
> 
> Sooo, there you have it. Please tell me what you thought of this! I really tried to mix up my writing in the last chapter, feeling my last few felt rather juvenile. I'm still just having fun with it. Hope this story made sense too. I had my own ideas about what Warren was feeling but some of it is up to interpretation. Let me know your thoughts.
> 
> Thanks again to everyone who read and reviewed and 'I'll see you around'! :)

**Author's Note:**

> My first AO3 post! Hope this turned out okay. I definitely wanted to try branching out from my fanfic account.
> 
> Taken directly from my fanfic post:
> 
> So this idea was bumping around my head for the longest time. I even drew some fanart based off of it, lol. I wish in the game that Max stayed in the alternate timeline for at least a little longer. I would've liked to see just how weird and different it was.
> 
> I took some liberties with what actually took place in the game and basically, this story happens after Max had visited with Chloe and discovered what happened to her but where Max didn't immediately return after finding the old picture.
> 
> I had a ton of ideas with this, and I could honestly turn it into some huge multi-chapter fic but I might keep it as a (two?) oneshot for now. Actually, since finishing the game, I've had quite a huge story in the works that I don't want to publish until I get most of the story down! Anyway, hope you enjoyed this. It's quite simple, not very romantic. Just a sad look at Max and Warren's relationship... thanks for reading :)


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